


Insomnia Listens

by GoblinCatKC



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 10:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20113444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoblinCatKC/pseuds/GoblinCatKC
Summary: April leads a charmed life...but a little bloodshed could make it better. At least, that's what Leonardo thinks.





	Insomnia Listens

April leads a charmed life. No one tells her what to do, where to go. She chooses her own path—picking her own classes in school, trying only the jobs she likes. She doesn't have to ask permission to have a strange pet and doesn't worry about hiding her green best friends from her parents.

It seems like heaven to four teenagers stuck underground. The turtles' home is big but it's a makeshift prison, buried deep in the sewers and hidden from the rest of the world. Mystic diners and libraries where the rich rule and the outcasts vanish are no substitute for school, friends, a life. 

And their father...distant. Almost as distant as April's mother.

Her mom lives across the city where she can't get to April. The court who let April become an emancipated minor made sure that the restraining order reaches several blocks.

April doesn't talk about it. 

But she does talk about the bills, the string of failed jobs, the mean comments on her photos online and how everyone knows that her mom isn't with her at home. How the Purple Dragons took the library for their own territory and the cooking class teacher hates her, how her landlord is giving her the creeps and how the one normal friend she made turned out to be not so normal at all.

She talks about...

Donatello's tuned out into his own world by then, lamenting his lost Purple Dragon jacket and seguing into his new dragon-themed bo, and he just has to show it off if he can find it in his pile of nearly finished projects.

Michelangelo tuned out ages ago, thinking that her friend and his capybara friend should totally meet, and he's already dialing his buddy.

Raphael wants to hear all about the recipes she's learning in cooking class 'cause he's all about the pies and cakes right now, and she mentioned learning something about baked napoleon...even if it did get an F, come on, April, share the goods.

So she helps Michelangelo set up the playdate, and she admires Donatello's new explosive bo even if it goes off in his face a little early, and she dutifully replicates the recipe, although she didn't find out if the napoleon was a success since she'd been kicked out of class and she hid in the bathroom for the rest of the period.

It's nightfall by the time they're done. She sits alone on their couch and picks up one of the cushions, fluffing it even though it'd been reduced to stone-hard flatness years ago, and she fingers the ratty afghan draped across the sofa. 

"Mm-mm, don't even bother, trust me—there is no rest to be found on that couch."

She looks up. Leonardo is still sitting there at the kitchen table, drinking from a chipped mug, with his usual smart-ass smirk. This late at night, he's always at the table, exhausted and painfully awake.

"I'm pretty sure," he continues, "that Raphael squeezed every last Z out of it after the last time he bellyflopped from the ceiling. Almost squashed dad flat."

April chuckles once without humor.

"Yeah," she sighs, "then I don't wanna be on it if he decides to do that again."

"He's just oblivious sometimes." Leonardo shrugs and leans back in his chair. "They all are."

His smirk softens just a little.

"So...the landlord?"

Her face pinches. She stands, about to leave, when he pushes the opposite chair out with his foot. She stares at it, glances at the door and at the empty lair, then hugs herself and sits down.

"It's stupid," she says. "I'm just being crazy."

"Then you're in luck," he says. "Everyone says I'm stupid. But if you want crazy, I'll have to get Mikey."

She doesn't laugh. But she doesn't leave either, and she describes the little things. Packages that go missing off her apartment doorstep, then come back an hour later. The sound of her door being leaned against. That he happens to leave for work at the same time she goes to school, and he says he misses her now, how early is she leaving? The phone calls from an unlisted number, but she could swear she hears the same tv show in the background. 

"And then he says that he's worried about me being all alone." She pulls her legs up and hugs them to her chest. "And that I can come over any time, or that I can call him over any time..."

Leon doesn't laugh. And he doesn't talk, either. But he watches her over the edge of his mug, blinking slowly like someone exhausted. When she mentions that he lives right next door to her, so that she can hear him on the other side of the wall behind her couch, he smiles and says nothing.

"It's so stupid," she mumbles. "I swear, I'm just being paranoid. He's just a nice old guy who knows it's a rough part of town."

There's a long moment of silence as Leonardo takes another sip, and April sighs again and forces a smile.

"Anyway, that's that. Thanks for listening. I really needed to get that off my chest." She yawns and stands up, wobbling on her feet. "Man, I am beat."

"No wonder," he says. "It's one in the morning."

"What?" She groans at the clock, plopping down in the chair again. "I can't believe it. Wow. Oh my god, I missed Mayhem's feeding time. He's gonna claw the fridge apart."

"Tell ya what," Leonardo says, setting down the mug with finality. "You crash here—no no, don't argue, I'd have three angry brothers on my shell if I let you stagger home at this time of night."

She presses her fists to her face, yawning so hard that her eyes water. "I'd be lying if I said that didn't sound good, but—"

"I'll go feed Mayhem," Leonardo says. "Not like I could sleep worrying about you anyway, so I'll just swing by on my way out, feed the rugrat, duct tape any holes he made in the fridge, no prob."

"You don't sleep anyhow," she points out.

"Who can sleep knowing what can happen in this city?" he counters. "Come on, crash so you're one less kidnapping plot I gotta worry about."

"You..you sure?" She makes a token protest but they can both tell it's out of politeness. "I mean, if it's really no trouble..."

He bundles her back to the couch of no Zs and waits the few seconds it takes for her to fall asleep. Then he tucks the afghan over her shoulders, picks up his sword and heads out.

* * *

April wakes up to find Leonardo at the kitchen table again, his shoulders drooped, sipping once again from a mug. This time he's in pajamas with an old style night cap on his head, and he moves with the deliberate slowness of someone who hasn't slept at all despite his best efforts.

"Fed Mayhem," Leonardo mumbles, staring not at her but at a fixed point in the mug. "And fixed the damage he did."

"Aw, thank you!" She gives him a hug that he accepts with a satisfied grin, and she snags a microwave breakfast burrito on her way out.

There are sirens on the way to her apartment. That isn't surprising. There are always sirens in her neighborhood. In a way, it's a good thing that the paramedics and firemen will still come to her part of town. 

But there are so many flashing lights and a growing crowd on the opposite sidewalk. There's an ambulance parked in front of her apartment building, and three police cars are gathered together like a fence while the officers talk to people in the crowd. 

That's not something she really wants to deal with. She heads to the side of the apartments—there's an officer stationed there talking to the janitor, but there's no one behind the building where the basement windows are. They're always open to vent the hot, humid air of the laundry room, and she slides in without a problem. 

No one sees her leave the basement. No one sees her go up the stairs. No one sees her open the door to the hall, and no one sees her as they wheel the gurney out of the apartment next to hers. There's a thick black bag on top—

Body bag, she realizes.

—and the open door is splashed with blood.

* * *

April leads a charmed life. No one tells her what to do, where to go. She chooses her own path—picks her own friends and finds her own family. She doesn't have to ask permission to come and go and walks the streets without any fear.

No one tells her not to head into the dark underground layers of the city—she paints the walls with Michelangelo and serves as a sounding board for Donatello's less grounded designs. She brings a new crochet stitch to Raphael and helps him work on a new afghan. And she stays up late with Leonardo.

Staying up late to keep an eye on him is a lot less stressful than staying up late answering questions from the police.

There is a stillness in the lair when everyone else is asleep. Where riotous teenage voices bounced off the walls, she can now hear every drip of water in the distant corners of their home. The rustle of her clothing carries in soft echoes. She can almost hear the slight shift of him on his chair, hear the warm milk as he drinks.

She doesn't mention her dead landlord. That's too much to deal with right now. She's barely fifteen and the only adult presence in her life is snoring in front of an old '70s kung-fu marathon right now.

But she does talk about the new job she's held for a whole week, the number of people she blocked online and her nice new subscribers, and how she found out she's not the only emancipated minor at school. How the Purple Dragons dropped out, and the cooking class teacher's divorce finalized so she's leaving school to start a dog grooming business, how April's new landlord is installing a security system and how the cleaners finally finished work in the apartment next to hers. 

She's safe, she emphasizes. Safe. All the threats are gone, and she's safe. Hell, the city is so quiet that all of them must be safe, and just listen to all the reasons she can list.

Her steady voice and constant chatter drone on and on. Someone less charitable might call it prattling, that it serves her right as his head tips down just a little, that his eyes close and he dozes off in the middle of her sentence. The table doesn't look nearly as comfortable as the ratty couch, but it must have some Zs in it as he lays his head down on his folded arms and sleeps.

Satisfied with herself, she puts Raphael's new afghan over Leonardo's shoulders and staggers home for the night.


End file.
